VA Insanity

Was just reading the VA will cover a wide range of transgender issues from hormones to surgeries to hair removal etc BUT. Anyone who served in Thailand during the Vietnam war will not be covered unless you can prove you had duty walking the base perimeter. It took years for the military to admit they used agent orange and other herbicides on all military bases in Thailand. To think these herbicides stayed within the perimeter is ludicrous Anything sprayed would have drift and come the monsoons would be spread all over. Living quarters had open air ventilation and were located on the perimeter. Thailand veterans in direct support of the war are classified as Vietnam veterans and authorized to wear the Vietnam campaign ribbon yet in the eyes of the VA/government we are not. I am one of those-- I worked the flight line loading bombs on the F-4 6-7 days a a week 12 or more hours a day. I suffer from exposure and the VA will do nothing. Sorry for the rant-- just pisses me off

 

A fellow in our church was a Korean POW, captured because he had a broken leg. The VA would cover problems with that leg but not the other which became damaged because he couldn’t get proper medical treatment for his broken leg in the POW camp. It took him years to get the VA to finally admit that maybe they should cover both legs. My solution, all the bureaucrats should be combat vets first, since the military-industrial-complex is bound and determined to keep us in endless wars, that shouldn’t be too hard.

 

at the base at Phu Bia the shower and laundry water was taken from a pond that was on the perimeter... everything in that pond was brown and dead...

basically we were showering in water and wearing clothing permeated with agent orange...

I have several agent orange issue... including a rather nasty heart attack... lost a relative that served a tour over there as well to a heart attack...

VA said they needed the info from the hospital where I was treated for the heart attack... got it sent it and a week later got comp for it added on...

sadly they have fought against awarding some vets for service related even when the record shows they were exposed...

 

Glad the VA covered you. What gets me is why the hell your service is any way connected with your transgender issues. It's crap like this that is making me biased against transgenders. Special treatment when we Thai vets have real health issues -- its all about money --the government does not want to open a can of worms that's going to cost them. Let us die and the problem goes away.

 

Dad sailed in those waters around Nam, and it took the VA several years to finally add claims for sailors! There is/was no reason for the gov. to go to all the troubles denying the use of, and now treatments for agent orange to vets who served, they own it and should be made to fully pay for it, the day we pulled out, not 50 years later!

 

I know a Vietnam vet that is just now trying to get comp for some of his issues,,, he's72 now ,,, I told him , he's just going to have to stay on them and play the system,,,,, and to remember, that most of the people denying his claims, most likely have never left the safety of our country's borders .

 

Agent orange was chemical warfare.

 

Most of the claims people are mere clerks, trained by the VA, using VA speak and their buzz words.

 

The VA is for veterans health related issues due to military service --paying out to some transgender (all claim it is something they are born with) has nothing to do with their military service. Their getting benefits denies some vet with real military health issues. Blue water Navy deserves coverage and it took a long time for the government to fess up IMO they did because there are not that many compared to Thai vets less cost, If the pie is too small stop paying for the 1 million illegals and cover all vets damn it

 

I contacted agent orange in 1969, but, I served on spec ops and all proof of location served was erased from my records, yet I have a Vietnam Service Medal with 3 stars. None the less until the Blue Water Sailors Act of 2019 I was denied service connection for my 11 AO connected illness. NTL I did file and was denied all care for my problems as they occurred. Thank the Lord I had proof of AO and PN treatment at a Mil Care center in 1969 and I was provided Medication for my AO condition. The proof was entered in my record and still is.
If not for private care I would be dead after ischemic heart disease,open heart surgery, double bypass and then 15 years later a heart attack and a double bypass.
Presently my VA claim states they are unable to tell me the status of my claim.
Hell no I will never quit, and now they will have to finish the claim and pay my survivors should I die.

This due to a law passed 2013.

 

tell him to go to the DAV or VFW or any vet org or the patient advocate!!! they can and will help!!!

and often get things done quickly when compared to just the vet trying...

also reports are there has been a backlog of vet claims so???

 

• Just got this today>>HK
  
• 
  Department of Veterans Affairs will hire and train new staff to ensure Veterans’ claims are adjudicated quickly
  
  
  
  Dear Veteran,
  
  
  
  Starting in October, the Department of Veterans Affairs will hire and train new staff to ensure Veterans’ claims are adjudicated quickly and help reduce an expected increase in the backlog of claims pending more than 125 days. VA is taking the following proactive steps to help in the reduction:
  • Hire and train 2,000 new employees to assist in claims processing.
  • Leverage authority to transfer CARES funding to VBA and utilize the American Rescue Plan to fund overtime to ensure timely claims processing.
  • Deploy requested Fiscal Year 2022 budget resources to support Agent Orange presumptive processing, as well as for general Compensation and Pension claims processing.
  
  
  As of October 11, there were more than 204,000 backlog claims in an inventory of 603,000 total claims. VA identified more than 70,000 claims to review for additional entitlement stemming from the presumptive relationship between Agent Orange and Parkinsonism, bladder cancer, and hypothyroidism. Many of these will enter the backlog in October, which is projected to reach 260,000 pending claims.
  
  
  
  “VA is committed to ensuring timely access to benefits and services for all veterans. This includes making sure that veterans who may have experienced adverse health effects from military related exposures can get access to the benefits they need,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough. “As we process claims such as those for three new disabilities presumptively linked to Agent Orange exposure, including proactive application of Nehmer provisions, as well as three new Gulf War particulate exposure presumptives, we anticipate the claims backlog to increase this fall. The hiring of new employees will help us resolve these claims more quickly.”
  
  
  
  Several factors have contributed to the recent backlog. Beginning in March 2020, operational changes necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an untimely delay of the Federal Records Centers’ retrieval of documents and suspended Compensation and Pension (C&P) examinations. While these actions were necessary to protect the health and safety of employees and veterans, they slowed the processing time for claims. VA workload has also increased as a result of the aforementioned recent decisions and actions, including a court order mandating the review of previously denied Veterans on the basis of qualifying service in the 12 nautical miles surrounding Vietnam.
  
  
  
  The backlog has decreased by more than 14,000 claims since the end of August 2021. With continued improvement of VA’s ability to obtain C&P examinations and Federal Records, and with all requested resources received, VBA plans to address the impending increase and then further reduce the current claims backlog to 100,000 claims by April 2024.
  
  
  
  Learn more about claims and to view reports visit Detailed Claims Data.
  
  If you know a Veteran who is in crisis, call the Veterans Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255 and press 1.
  
  
  Connect With Us
  
  Update your subscriptions, modify your password or email address, or stop subscriptions at any time on your Subscriber Preferences Page. You will need to use your email address to log in. For questions or problems with the subscription service, visit subscriberhelp.govdelivery.com.
  
  
  
  Sent to XXXXXXXXX on behalf of US Department of Veterans Affairs
  Veterans Benefits Administration · 810 Vermont Avenue, NW · Washington, DC 20420 · 1-800-827-1000
  
  

 

VA Claim Information>>HK

Claim for compensation and pension
updated on August 24, 2021
Status: Evidence gathering, review, and decision

• We sent you a development letter

Submitted on: May 14, 2021


Supplemental claim for disability compensation updated on April 29, 2021
Status: We don’t know your status

Issues on review: Heart valve replacement and 5 others

Submitted on: April 29, 2021

 

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United States District Court
Northern District of California





UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA


BEVERLY NEHMER, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERAN AFFAIRS,
Defendant.


No. C 86-06160 WHA


ORDER ON MOTION FOR ENFORCEMENT OF FINAL JUDGMENT
INTRODUCTION
In this certified class action resolved by consent decree thirty years ago, plaintiff veterans
bring a fourth motion for enforcement of the consent decree. Defendant federal agency
opposes. To the extent stated herein, plaintiffs’ motion is granted.
STATEMENT
Thirty-three years ago, Judge Thelton Henderson certified plaintiffs’ class of all Vietnam
veterans and their survivors who had applied, or were eligible to apply, to the VA for
service-connected disability or death compensation “arising from exposure during active-duty
service to herbicides containing dioxin.” Nehmer v. U.S. Veterans’ Admin., 118 F.R.D. 113,
116 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 22, 1987). Dioxin is the toxic contaminant in the defoliant known as
Agent Orange (because of the orange-colored stripe on its barrels) sprayed by the United States
Armed Forces in Vietnam to clear jungle and destroy crops during the Vietnam War.
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See Nehmer v. United States Veterans’ Administration, 712 F. Supp. 1404, 1407 (N.D. Cal.
May 3, 1989) (Nehmer I).
Plaintiffs initially challenged a VA regulation promulgated under the Veterans’ Dioxin
and Radiation Exposure Compensation Standards Act of 1984. The Dioxin Act “dramatically
alter[ed] the process governing [veterans’] Agent Orange disability claims. Rather than have
the VA determine in individual adjudicatory proceedings whether a particular veteran’s
claimed disease was caused by Agent Orange exposure, the Act authorize[d] the Administrator
of the VA [ ] to conduct rulemaking to determine which diseases [would] be deemed service
connected for all diseases claimed to be caused by Agent Orange exposure.” Id. at 1407–08.
The Act applied to veterans exposed to dioxin during “service . . . in the Republic of Vietnam.”
Pub. L. 98-542, § 5(a)(1), 98 Stat. 2725, 2727 (1984).
The challenged regulation provided that any veteran who had served “in the Republic of
Vietnam” would “be presumed to have been exposed to a herbicide containing dioxin while in
Vietnam.” 38 C.F.R. § 3.311a(b) (1986). But, under Regulation 311, only a single disease —
chloracne — was “sufficient to establish service-connection for resulting disability.” 38 C.F.R.
§ 3.311a(c). Judge Henderson invalidated the regulation because, although Congress had
intended the VA to “predicate service connection upon a finding of a significant statistical
association between dioxin exposure and various diseases,” the VA had erroneously required
proof that a causal relationship existed. Nehmer I, 712 F.Supp. at 1420, 1423.
While the VA was in the process of promulgating regulations to replace the one
invalidated by the 1989 order, Congress enacted the Agent Orange Act of 1991. 38 U.S.C.
§ 1116(b) (originally codified as § 316(b)). The Agent Orange Act mandated that the VA
accord service-connection status to three diseases — non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft tissue
sarcomas, and chloracne — if manifested by a veteran who “served in the Republic of
Vietnam” during the war. 38 U.S.C. § 1116(a)(1)(B). The pertinent implementing regulation
stated:

“Service in the Republic of Vietnam” includes service in the waters offshore and service in other locations, if the conditions of service involved duty or visitation in the Republic of Vietnam.
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38 C.F.R. § 3.311a (1985). The Act also required that whenever the VA Secretary determined
that a “positive association exists between” exposure to herbicides and a disease, “the
Secretary shall prescribe regulations providing that a presumption of service connection is
warranted for that disease” due to herbicide exposure. 38 U.S.C. § 1116(b)(1). It did not,
however, ensure that as the Secretary recognized further diseases as presumptively service-
connected, any prior claims based on those diseases would be readjudicated.
Three months after the Agent Orange Act, the certified class entered into a consent
decree with the VA to ensure automatic readjudication of such previously-denied claims.
The consent decree provided, in part, that “[a]s soon as a final rule is issued service
connecting, based on dioxin exposure, any . . . disease in the future pursuant to the Agent
Orange Act of 1991, . . . the VA shall promptly thereafter” (a) identify all claimants who
previously filed a disability or death compensation claim based on such disease,
(b) readjudicate that claim under the new rule, and (c) if the claim is granted, assign as the
effective date the date the VA received the claim or the date the claimant became disabled
or death occurred, whichever is later. Because the consent decree turned on a veteran’s
eligibility for benefits under the Agent Orange Act, the decree, like the Act, applied to veterans
who “served in the Republic of Vietnam” (see FINAL STIPULATION AND ORDER (the consent
decree), Dkt. No. 141 ¶ 3).
Since agreeing to the consent decree, the VA has issued ten rules service-connecting
dozens of diseases to presumed herbicide exposure in Vietnam (Decl. Devlin ¶ 2 n.1 (listing
rules)). 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(e) (listing diseases). Readjudications of hundreds of thousands
of claims have resulted in billions of dollars of retroactive benefit awards that might not
otherwise have been paid. Class counsel has had to remain vigilant to ensure the government’s
compliance with its consent decree obligations. On three separate occasions (four including
this motion), they have had to seek enforcement of the consent decree on a class-wide basis.

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Each time, Judge Henderson interpreted the consent decree in plaintiffs’ favor and granted the
requested relief. Each time, our court of appeals affirmed, most recently stating:
What is difficult for us to comprehend is why the Department of Veteran Affairs, having entered into a settlement agreement and agreed to a consent order some 16 years ago, continues to resist its implementation so vigorously, as well as to resist equally vigorously the payment of desperately needed benefits to Vietnam war veterans who fought for their country and suffered grievous injury as a result of our government’s own conduct . . . . [O]ne thing is clear. Those young Americans who risked their lives in their country’s service and are even today suffering greatly as a result are deserving of better treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs than they are currently receiving. We would hope that this litigation will now end, that our government will now respect the legal obligations it undertook in the Consent Decree some 16 years ago, that obstructionist bureaucratic opposition will now cease, and that our veterans will finally receive the benefits to which they are morally and legally entitled.

Nehmer v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 494 F.3d 846, 864–65 (9th Cir. 2007).
The latest challenge concerns “blue water navy veterans,” meaning, those who served
aboard a ship that was located in the territorial waters of “the Republic of Vietnam” during
the war but did not set foot on the landmass of Vietnam or serve in the inland waterways of
Vietnam (brown water navy veterans). The VA’s refusal is based on its interpretation of the
Agent Orange Act’s limitation to veterans who “served in the Republic of Vietnam.” The VA
interprets this phrase as only including veterans who had boots on the ground in Vietnam and
brown water navy veterans, not including blue water navy veterans.
This order follows full briefing and a telephonic hearing (due to the ongoing public
health emergency).
ANALYSIS
Agent Orange was used extensively by the United States military in the Republic of
Vietnam between 1961 and 1971. Military personnel began to raise questions about its toxic
effects on soldiers and sailors as early as 1967, and the first claims to the Department of
Veterans Affairs asserting conditions related to Agent Orange came in 1977. The military,
however, denied that there were any long-lasting harmful effects on our personnel. In 1984,
Congress passed the Dioxin Act, which directed the VA to establish a framework for granting
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disability claims on a presumptive basis for all diseases shown to be associated with Agent
Orange exposure by veterans who “serv[ed] . . . in the Republic of Vietnam.” Pub. L. 98-542,
§ 5(a)(1), 98 Stat. 2725, 2727 (1984).
A regulation purporting to implement the Dioxin Act presumed veterans who “served in
the Republic of Vietnam” were exposed to herbicides containing dioxin (like Agent Orange)
but restricted the diseases sufficient to establish service-connection for a resulting disability to
only a single disease — chloracne. 38 C.F.R. § 3.311a(b) & (c) (1986).
This lawsuit challenged that regulation.
Congress then enacted the Agent Orange Act of 1991, which, as discussed, mandated that
the VA accord service-connection status to chloracne and two additional diseases if manifested
by a veteran who “served in the Republic of Vietnam” during the Vietnam era, and required
that whenever the VA Secretary determined that a “positive association exists between”
exposure to herbicides and a disease, “the Secretary shall prescribe regulations providing that
a presumption of service-connection is warranted for that disease” due to herbicide exposure.
38 U.S.C. §§ 1116(a)(1)(B) and 1116(b)(1).
This led to the consent decree in this case. The purpose of the consent decree was to
require, as additional diseases became recognized, automatic readjudications by the VA of
claims by military personnel who had served “in the Republic of Vietnam” where those claims
had earlier been denied on the ground that the disease in question had not been determined to
be service-connected. As discussed, while the consent decree does not use the words
“Republic of Vietnam,” its applicability turned on veteran eligibility for benefits under the
Agent Orange Act, and so its provisions are limited, like the Act, to veterans who “served in
the Republic of Vietnam.” Recognizing that the list of diseases warranting a presumption of
service-connection might expand as time went on, the consent decree ensured automatic
readjudication of diseases subsequently determined to be presumptively service-connected.
For example, if a claim was denied on the ground that the Parkinson’s disease afflicting a
veteran had not been connected to his or her service in Vietnam but the agency subsequently
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determined it presumptively service-connected, then the consent decree required the agency
to automatically go back and find the claim and readjudicate it.
Significantly, then existing statutes did not require automatic readjudications. (Nor has
any statute since.) The benefit of the consent decree for veterans was and remains the
requirement for automatic readjudications. This has become an important feature of the
consent decree because the VA’s list of presumptively service-connected diseases related
to dioxin exposure has since risen to thirty-seven. 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(e) (listing diseases).
In other words, many diseases previously denied by the VA as connected to “service in the
Republic of Vietnam” have now been recognized by the agency as presumptively connected
to such service. The consent decree has served the useful purpose of requiring the agency to
automatically readjudicate those claims.
Nothing in the consent decree limited relief only to those veterans who set foot on the
landmass of Vietnam or served in the inland waterways of Vietnam, meaning nothing in the
consent decree denied relief to blue water navy veterans, i.e., those sailors who served offshore
but within the territorial waters of the Republic of Vietnam. Rather, the consent decree
mandated that “[a]s soon as a final rule is issued service connecting, based on dioxin exposure,
any . . . disease which may be service connected in the future pursuant to the Agent Orange
Act of 1991 . . . the VA shall promptly thereafter readjudicate all claims for any such
disease . . . without waiting for final rules to be issued on any other diseases” (Dkt. No. 141
¶ 3). The purpose of the consent decree was to provide relief to all veterans entitled to the
benefits of the Dioxin Act and the Agent Orange Act, and to give all such veterans the further
benefit of automatic readjudications.
For the first eleven years of the consent decree, the VA in fact did give automatic
readjudications to any veteran who had received a Vietnam service medal, which was
“[a]warded to all members of the Armed Forces of the United States serving at any time
between July 4, 1965 and March 28, 1973, in Vietnam, its contiguous waters, or airspace,
thereover” (Decl. Spataro ¶ 9, Exh. 9). This included blue water navy veterans who had served
within the territorial waters of the Republic of Vietnam. In 2002, however, the agency adopted
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an interpretive regulation excluding the blue water navy veterans from benefits under the Acts,
and limiting relief to those who had had boots on the ground or had served in the inland
waterways of Vietnam (brown water navy).
By the time of this interpretive regulation in 2002, the United States Court of Appeals for
the Federal Circuit had acquired subject-matter jurisdiction over challenges to such regulations.
So, our case sat on the sidelines and watched with interest as that challenge unfolded in the
Federal Circuit.
The first case to litigate the issue was a disability claim by Jonathan Haas, who had
served the U.S. Navy in the Republic of Vietnam for seven years, and another twelve years in
the reserves. While in Vietnam, Haas had served on an ammunition ship and had resupplied
boats and ships patrolling the coastal water of Vietnam with ammunition, food, stores, and
fuel, but the VA would not deem his subsequent disability presumptively connected to his
service because he had never entered the ports of Vietnam (due to the risks of explosion due
to enemy fire or sabotage). The issue he raised did not concern automatic readjudication.
His issue was the blue-water issue. The Federal circuit gave deference to the agency and ruled
against him because he had been a sailor only off the coast. Haas v. Peake, 544 F.3d 1306,
1309 (Fed. Cir. 2008).
The Federal Circuit en banc later reversed itself, however. Alfred Procopio, Jr., served
on the U.S.S. Intrepid, deployed in the waters offshore of the landmass of the Republic of
Vietnam, and later sought entitlement to service-connection for diabetes mellitus and prostate
cancer but was denied service-connection because he was a blue-water sailor. The Federal
Circuit held that Haas had been wrongly decided, and that blue-water sailors were in fact
within the ambit of the statute. Procopio v. Wilkie, 913 F.3d 1371, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2019).
The agency now accepts Procopio as correctly decided. Therefore, in the judgment
of this Court, the consent decree’s requirement for automatic readjudications extends to all
veterans covered by those Acts, including blue-water veterans.
The agency insists, however, that relief under the consent decree should be limited to
those who set foot on the landmass of Vietnam and those who served on the inland waterways,
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excluding blue-water veterans who served within the Republic of Vietnam. The agency insists
that we are interpreting a contract, i.e., the consent decree, and not the statute, that the original
intent of the parties must be determinative, and that the intent of the agency was to exclude
blue-water veterans even though they served in the territorial waters of “the Republic of
Vietnam.”
This order disagrees. First, the objective and reasonable intent of the consent decree
was to require automatic readjudications for all persons entitled to benefits under the Acts.
The Acts extended benefits to all those military personnel who had served within “the Republic
of Vietnam.” The scope of that term has now been finally settled by Procopio, with the
blessing of the agency, to include blue-water sailors. This alone is dispositive.
Second, the agency itself in its first eleven years, in fact, extended the benefits of the
consent decree to anyone who had received a Vietnam service medal, which included the
blue-water veterans. This practical construction of the agreement torpedoes the agency’s later
change of heart. Alabama v. North Carolina, 560 U.S. 330, 346 (2010); Air France v. Saks,
470 U.S. 392, 396 (1985); Crestview Cemetery Ass’n. v. Dieden, 54 Cal.2d 744, 754 (1960).
The agency now says that was a decade-long mistake and that the agency should have all
along denied relief under the consent decree. Nevertheless, that was the practical construction
of the parties at the time and it is completely unpersuasive that the agency years later says that
its practical construction goofed. The agency’s subjective intent, moreover, is not
determinative. In construing a contract, we look to how reasonable parties in such
circumstances would construe the agreement. The intent of the contract objectively and
reasonably construed was to provide automatic readjudications for all entitled to benefits
under the Acts.
In June 2019, in the wake of Procopio, Congress enacted the Blue Water Navy Vietnam
Veterans Act, which expressly provided that all diseases covered by the Agent Orange Act
were connected to blue-water veterans’ service in Vietnam, and provided substantial relief to
the victims of the agency’s misguided interpretation. 38 U.S.C. § 1116A(a). While the 2019
Act did in fact provide relief to most veterans in question, it did not fully cover those who
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would benefit from the consent decree, such as adult children of the veterans, and it did not
require automatic readjudications. Therefore, the consent decree continues to have importance.
The fact that Congress solved part of the problem in 2019 in no way undoes the consent
decree. The House Report made clear that “othing in [the Blue Waters Act] intends to limit
the rights of Nehmer class members who seek relief for benefits under the Nehmer Consent
Decree.” H.R. Rep. 116-58 at 284 (2019). The fact that there are overlapping and coextensive
benefits for some veterans does not erase the benefit of the consent decree for the others.
The agency contends that class counsel is guilty of laches for not having raised the issue
presented in Haas until now. The answer is that Procopio very recently settled that question.
Everyone then would have expected the agency to extend the benefit of the consent decree to
all those veterans entitled to the benefit of the Dioxin Act and Agent Orange Act. Surprisingly,
however, the agency refused to do so and took the position that the consent decree applied to a
narrower class of veterans than the statutes themselves. For the reasons stated above, this was
in error and class counsel promptly brought the issue to the district court once they learned of
the agency’s obstinance on the impact of Procopio.
In theory only, class counsel could have challenged the Haas decision in this district and
then in the Ninth Circuit, but that would have been a long shot because, by 2002, the Federal
Circuit had exclusive jurisdiction to review VA rules and regulations, see 38 U.S.C. § 502,
and it is highly likely that our own court of appeals would have felt obliged to follow Haas.
Counsel for the class acted reasonably in raising the issue only after Procopio had been
decided in 2019.
Challenges to VA action must, today, be brought before the Federal Circuit. But this
rule did not exist until 1989, two years after plaintiffs filed this lawsuit challenging a VA
regulation. Reviewing the pertinent legislative history, Judge Henderson determined that
Congress meant to preserve actions filed before September 1989, affirming prior circuit
decisions allowing judicial review. Thus, this Court retained (and retains) jurisdiction over
plaintiffs’ claims. Nehmer I, 712 F.Supp. at 1410–11.

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CONCLUSION
To the extent stated herein, plaintiffs’ motion is granted. Defendant shall (1) identify,
within 120 days of the date of this order, all of the Nehmer readjudication decisions made
pursuant to the consent decree in which the VA denied compensation on the ground that the
veteran was not entitled to the presumption of herbicide exposure because the veteran did not
set foot on the landmass of Vietnam or serve in the inland waterways of Vietnam; (2) issue,
within 240 days of the date of this order, a replacement decision that determines: (a) whether
the veteran served in the territorial waters of the Republic of Vietnam during the war and, if so,
(b) the amount of retroactive compensation, if any, the veteran or the veteran’s survivor (or, if
the veteran or survivor is deceased, the estate of the deceased veteran or survivor) is entitled
under the terms of consent decree; and (3) provide class counsel, pursuant to the Privacy
Protection Order (see Dkt. Nos. 224, 446, 447), with a copy of (a) all of the Nehmer
readjudication decisions identified, (b) all of the replacement decisions issued, and (c) each
notice letter sent to the class members and coding sheet associated with such replacement
decisions.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: November 5, 2020.


WILLIAM ALSUP UNITED STATES DISTRIC